Adzera, in the Comparative Austronesian Dictionary (ed. Tryon, Darrel T.)

49. Adzera

Contributor:

Introduction and Woidlist : Susanne C. Holzknecht

1. Introduction

The Adzera language is spoken by approximately 20,650 people living in the
valley of the Markham River, and in the valleys of its tributaries to the north
and south, in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. Within Adzera there are
several different varieties spoken. These are:

1. Central dialect chain, comprising 23 villages in the central part of the
Markham Valley. This variety includes the villages of the Onga^ group,
on the south bank of the Markham River, and has approximately 9,950
speakers.

2. Amari dialect, spoken in 14 villages from the Umi River to the Markham-
Ramu Divide, with 5,300 speakers.

3. Ngarowapum dialect, spoken in four villages on the northern side of the
Markham Valley between Umi and Mangiang Rivers, with 1,200
speakers.

4. Yams dialect, which is found in ten villages in the mountains to the north
of Ngarowapum, and in the valleys of the Mangiang, Mami and Yafats
Rivers. These people number 2,2(X).

5. Guruf dialect, spoken in six villages on the south side of the Markham
River, between the Waffa River and the village of Idzingants. This
dialect also includes Ngariawang village, which is several kilometres up
into the Leron River valley, on the opposite side of the Markham Valley
to Guruf. Total population is 1,550.

6. Tsumanggorun village, which has its own variety of Adzera. This village
is on the northern side of the Markham Valley, near the Iroap River. Its
population is 400.

Previous work has been done on Adzera by K.G. Holzknecht (n.d., 1973a,
1973b, 1973c), Hooley (1971, 1976) and S.C. Holzknecht (1986, 1989).

742 Adzera

The research on which the present worcUist is based was carried out between
1976 and 1987. This has been supplemented by data from K-G. Holzknecht's
unpublished dictionary of Adzera (K.G. Holzknecht, n.d.).

Holzknecht, Susanne C. 1995. Adzera. In: Darrel T. Tryon (ed.) Comparative
Austronesian Dictionary. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter,